We rely on independent mapmakers to draw electoral boundaries at each redistribution. There is an extensive process of public consultation, and there are rules about how seats can be drawn, but ultimately the mapmakers have quite a lot of discretion about how they apply guidelines, and where they draw the lines.
The Tasmanian government has announced plans to “reform” Tasmanian local government by slashing the number of councillors across the state. The government has put up a discussion paper on the topic, but in short it would reduce the number of elected officials on councils to five, seven or nine members.
6:00 – Polls have just closed in the Kiama by-election. This state seat is on the south coast of New South Wales, and was vacated by Gareth Ward shortly before he was expected to be expelled from the Legislative Assembly after his conviction and expected sentencing.
Results should start to come in before 7pm tonight. I’ll be live-blogging here. In the meantime, you can read my guide to the by-election here.
Ben was joined by Matt Dennien from the Brisbane Times to discuss the Queensland state redistribution, specifically the first round of submissions. The conversation focuses on the Labor and LNP submissions, and also run through some of the other public submissions.
The first round of public submissions for the Queensland state redistribution were published last week – about three weeks after they were submitted to the Commission. So I thought it would be useful to examine what they say, with a particular focus on the major party submissions.
There are four rounds of submissions:
There’s been a lot of talk about expanding the size of Australia’s federal parliament in the last few years. Some of us have been talking about this for a lot longer, but it has seemed feasible since Labor took power in 2022.
We now have a quiet period following the federal election and the Tasmanian election, and I’m using it as an opportunity to complete my election guides for the elections next in the queue.
The South Australian election guide has already been published for some time, but today I’ve published my Victorian election guide.
With a few elections finishing up, I have now made a number of additions to the Tally Room’s data repository.
With the resignation of Gareth Ward this morning, shortly before his expected expulsion from Parliament, a by-election will be needed to replace him in Parliament. The Kiama by-election should happen soon, likely in September.
I won’t be delving into the issues around Ward’s legal situation, or the potential expulsion – the focus here is entirely on the impending by-election.
There has been a clear trend in all Australian elections over the last twenty years of voters moving away from voting on election day, with an increasing number of voters choosing pre-poll voting as an alternative.